MobileMe revamp may include status/check-in/streaming mashup

Anonymous sources continue to leak information about a rumored major MobileMe …

Rumors of a revamped MobileMe service have been coming in a steady stream recently, mostly associated with an alleged "iPhone nano." The previous rumors focused on Apple grafting Lala-like streaming abilities onto the service, but a new report on Wednesday suggests that MobileMe will gain mobile video streaming, location check-ins, and geo-tagging, as well as a personal webpage that friends can check and see what you are up to at that precise moment.

An anonymous source told Cult of Mac that Apple's rumored new MobileMe service will combine the e-mail, contacts, and calendar syncing with new social media services, making it a sort of Facebook, Foursquare, Ustream, and Ping mashup. The current focus is on streaming media and location-based services, though the source said that "a lot of their ideas were shelved for a later date in order to focus on a few of them."

MobileMe users would have a webpage that friends can visit, which would include data pulled from your iPhone, such as current location, recent iTunes tracks, Game Center updates, currently used apps, recent geo-tagged photos, and even live-streamed video. Some information would be pulled automatically from your device, while other items could be shared at your whim. The service is also said to have "comprehensive" privacy controls, so you can control who has access to what bits of data.

The service will also reportedly work with a recently patented location check-in system called iGroups. Friends within an iGroup can get automatic notifications when they are within a certain range of each other, and have access to location updates via the new MobileMe homepage.

The combination of features could have some appeal if Apple can offer a unified, simple user interface and can match the reliability of current services. However, Apple will have its work cut out for it transitioning users away from other, more popular services if Ping's tepid uptake is any indication. If Apple offers straightforward integration with other services—MobileMe check-ins automatically post to FourSquare, or status updates automatically post to Facebook and/or Twitter—then an updated MobileMe might stand a chance of catching on.

If Apple indeed just adds some social iWhatever to Mobile Me and still requires you to pay good money even just for wireless syncing of calendars and contacts which you can get for free from Google, I think this will sink like a stone.

The selling point for MobileME is the absolutely SPAM free email I have been enjoying, as well as the syncing of information across all of my computers/devices. This is worth $150/yr for me (family plan), I do not really care for the new stuff being talked about, especially streaming. Maybe I am different, but I don't work/go anywhere that I can't carry my iPod with me. Heck, work doesn't even have a wireless network.

This combined with the previous rumor article about potential lack of storage makes me think they'll go the route of allowing your account to know which tracks you have access to, and then you can stream everything from MobileMe. So when you purchase a music track, your account retains that info. Hopefully you could also scan your physical CDs and add those albums to your account as well.

I would assume they'd still include memory storage on the device itself, but having the option of being able to stream your music from the cloud wherever you are (and on any device that can access your online iTunes/MobileMe account) would be nice. The purchase of Lala would have helped drive something like this.

Kind of like Steam and games - you can log into whichever PC you own and install the game without having to use the actual media.

The selling point for MobileME is the absolutely SPAM free email I have been enjoying, as well as the syncing of information across all of my computers/devices. This is worth $150/yr for me (family plan), I do not really care for the new stuff being talked about, especially streaming.

Yeah, but the point is that you get the same from Google for free and you can then even sync with non-Apple devices.

I have a hard time believing much of this streaming stuff with the capped data like ATT has. Kind of makes sense with an unlimited plan, but still sounds overly complicated way of getting data on the phone when flash is cheap.

It could use a tiered pricing model for users to access a subset of features. But, I use MobileMe for quite a few business needs and it is very reliable for me. My clients like it too. But I could see different price models for services. And yes, spam-free email is my favorite feature. I think I have gotten 3 spam messages in the last year. Although it does keep me in the dark for the current price of Viagra.

The selling point for MobileME is the absolutely SPAM free email I have been enjoying, as well as the syncing of information across all of my computers/devices. This is worth $150/yr for me (family plan), I do not really care for the new stuff being talked about, especially streaming.

Yeah, but the point is that you get the same from Google for free and you can then even sync with non-Apple devices.

I am unfamiliar with Google services outside of the Calendar. Do they offer a way to sync my bookmarks, calendars, contacts, dock, keychains, mail and system prefs between different devices? I understand Dropbox can be used as a sort-of iDisk, without the website stuff.

To be fair, though, I don't have a non-apple device, although my daughter uses some HP my wife got her, we were short one Christmas, she uses the MobileME to sync parts of that as well. My phone is pretty dumb, I don't need those things on it, honestly (just a keyboard)

This actually sounds compelling. I don't do status updates because I feel like taking the time to broadcast what i'm doing or where I am is a little overboard, but if I had a "site" that auto-updated what i'm doing, or where I am that friends could check -- that'd be cool. Course I'm on android, and not switching, but if this catches on, I could see someone else cloning/improving the idea.

I am unfamiliar with Google services outside of the Calendar. Do they offer a way to sync my bookmarks, calendars, contacts, dock, keychains, mail and system prefs between different devices? I understand Dropbox can be used as a sort-of iDisk, without the website stuff.

You can use Google to sync calendars, contacts, mail and quite a few other things. No keychains and system prefs, though.

I only use MobileMe for the tracking capabilities of my iPhones. AT&T wants $15.00 a month for the ability to track more than 2 phones (I have 4) and doesn't offer the option to lock, send a message, or remote wipe. However, that's ALL I use MobileMe for and at $99/year (about $8.34/mth) it's not a bad price, but I just can't afford a bulk payment. I'll just run my 2 months free trial and that will be that. Maybe by then, they'll offer free tracking to those that don't have an iPhone 4 in their possession (I've only got two 3Gs & two 3G phones).

Yeah, but the point is that you get the same from Google for free and you can then even sync with non-Apple devices.

As someone who uses both MobileMe and Gmail/GCal, I can tell you that the Google stuff is crap in comparison. That's not to say that I'd recommend most people pay $99/year for it - it's not worth it for most. But it's definitely not "the same" stuff if you value quality or reliability at all.

New to the boards, saw a few comments in here that are missing something.

Just to qualify for this thread, I’m using both Google Premier Apps for my small business and MM to supplement Google’s services, and we use multiple mobile smart phones to access those two services. I’d rather be ad-free, and I’m impressed with the progress Google’s made in their suite - but I’m sticking with MM due largely to its convenience. I’ve tired of fixing our contacts and calendar notifications, which are continually getting bunged up by iCal and our mobile devices (Android, WebOS, and iPhone devices). This isn’t my point.

My point - those of you paying $99 and $149 for MM each year are freakin’ nuts. I’ve paid between $55 and $60 for MM’s single-user plan and $85-$99 for MM’s family pack. I haven’t paid full price for MM in years, even Amazon lists the packages at $70/$100 for the latest box and much lower for the “older” boxes. $20 bucks a year for 5 accounts is a steal IMO given the services that come with it.

When every other "social media" site is free, photo hosting/sharing, email, contacts, and calendar syncing free from Google and Microsoft, even. Hell, even Photoshop.com has 2GB free photo hosting/sharing. Live.com has website hosting for basic sites, about what you'd produce with iWeb. DropBox offers 2+GB free and by all accounts, it's far better than iDisk.

So yes. $99/year is too expensive.

How about offering everything for free with ~2GB online storage that you can use for iDisk, or your website, or your photos, or all of the above.

Dropbox is 50GB for $99/year. Which as you might notice, is 2.5x the storage of MobileMe.

[Edit to add:]

Quaker Otis wrote:

And yes, spam-free email is my favorite feature. I think I have gotten 3 spam messages in the last year. Although it does keep me in the dark for the current price of Viagra.

You know, if I wasn't so obsessed with checking my spam folder on Gmail (to make sure no legitimate mail is in there, and to empty it regularly), I could set it to be hidden under the "More" link and never see it again (and I never see it in Mail or Thunderbird, both of which I prefer to the web interface). In the ~6 years I've been using it, I maybe have gotten 5-10 spam emails that got past their filters and made it to my inbox, and maybe 10 legitimate emails that got caught and I had to rescue from the spam folder. Those are total numbers. Not per year.

sterlingdax wrote:

I am unfamiliar with Google services outside of the Calendar. Do they offer a way to sync my bookmarks, calendars, contacts, dock, keychains, mail and system prefs between different devices? I understand Dropbox can be used as a sort-of iDisk, without the website stuff.

Actually Dropbox can be used as a web host, you just miss out on stuff like PHP or databases. If you just need a website using html, css, and javascript, it's perfectly adequate. Which is pretty much all you get for your iWeb site on MobileMe.

As for syncing, yes to everything you listed but dock, keychain, and system prefs (for what should be obvious reasons). If you use something like 1Password, you can have Dropbox set up to sync your 1Password database to all devices you use 1Password on. There's also KeyPass and LastPass, both of which are free. KeyPass can use Dropbox to keep databases in sync, and LastPass is all online.

I don't see much use in keeping docks synced unless you have every computer loaded up with the same software. And even then, unless you're changing the dock regularly, seems like it'd be a "set it once and forget it" on all computers, and you wouldn't really need to keep them synced. Same with system prefs. About the only system pref I change regularly is the sound output, changing from headphones to speakers. With everything else set up I only very rarely have to make any changes. Set it and forget it, so to speak.